There's More Than Homers To Bonds

Let us this day, to be fair in the truest sense of the word, now sing the praises of Barry Lamar Bonds, a great, great, great baseball player.

This is a man who has walloped more home runs than any who ever hit a ball, more than Hank or Babe or Willie or Mickey or any other colossus who came along.

He is also a man who put a glove on his hand and took a position on the field, unlike some we could name. He did not become a designated hitter or demand a trade to the American League, as did other one-dimensional "players" who were too infirm or inept to do anything but hit.

He is a man who has done much, much more than mash home runs. Among other deeds, Bonds has drawn more than 2,530 walks, a preposterous sum, hundreds more than any man in history, partly because of an eagle-like batting eye, partly because he imbues pitchers with fear.

The man has stolen more than 500 bases, most of them quite a while ago, back when he had the swiftness of his father, Bobby, and his godfather, Willie Mays. He has legged out 77 triples and nearly 600 doubles. Steroids didn't have a great deal to do with that.

The man possesses a batting stroke that in sweetness is right up there with the swings of the immortals. He chokes up on a bat like a Ty Cobb or a Nellie Fox, yet somehow he connects with the brute strength of a Harmon Killebrew or a Jimmie Foxx.

The man once hit at a .370 clip over an entire season, more than 400 at-bats worth. It is the kind of average you came to expect only from a Rod Carew or a Tony Gwynn, but when the masses speak of Barry Bonds, they seem unable to speak of anything except home runs.

The man's numbers would be higher into the stratosphere, if only more pitchers were not too chicken-hearted to pitch a hittable ball to him. Bonds has been walked intentionally more than 675 times, as proof- positive as anything that the bat of this giant from San Francisco has been seen as the most lethal weapon in the game.

The man's stats expanded with the bulk of his flesh, true, yet it was not as if Bonds came into baseball with twigs for arms and Pee-wee Herman's abs. In his very first season, 1986, as a newcomer who appeared in fewer than 120 of Pittsburgh's games, he launched 16 balls out of the park.

The man is no all-or-nothing free swinger. He does not lunge at every offering on the fringe of his ZIP code. He will not be known forever as a whiff king, or are his detractors unaware that active players such as Jim Thome, Craig Biggio, Carlos Delgado and Jim Edmonds each have struck out more times than Bonds has?

The man has made his history while being heckled and hooted on the job. In all but one of baseball's 32 parks, he has gone about his business while being pelted with personal abuse. Roger Maris' follicles fell out in clumps, which could explain why Bonds elects to shave his head.

The man stands a chance to close out his career with more than 3,000 hits, provided that his general health holds up, that his status with the commissioner's office remains unchanged and that a team, whether it be the Giants or some other, is willing to invite Bonds to return to duty for one more tour.

The man is a 14-time All-Star, a seven-time National League MVP and an eight-time Gold Glove winner in the field. Whichever asterisks need be punctuated behind his numbers and name, this is a highly decorated athlete who many a time has been granted the considerable respect of both the public and his peers.

The man is not revered or idolized but, in the spirit of honesty, he probably has been no more arrogant than Ruth and Cobb were, no more standoffish than Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio were, no more unpopular than Aaron or Maris were to many thousands because they had dared to endanger the Babe's hallowed records.

When he endeavored to make Hammerin' Hank's career homer record his own, Bonds did not get to have the Mighty Casey will of the multitudes on his side. He did not enjoy the back-patting that Pete Rose did while in pursuit of Cobb's hit count or that Cal Ripken Jr. received while putting a permanent dent in Lou Gehrig's ironman mark.

But when this man swung and stung one Tuesday night that cleared the center field at AT & T on a fat and juicy 3-2 pitch served up to him by Mike Bacsik, he became, indisputably, the mightiest swatter of home runs of anyone who made it to America's major leagues.

For this, while we may not rejoice on his behalf, he is deserving of at least a helping of praise, an acknowledgment that whatever else he has been or is proven to be, Barry Bonds is a unique figure of baseball, quite literally one of a kind. *